


Ordinary World

by FrozenHearts



Series: Connections Around Eos (And Other Hidden Monstrosities) [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV, Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Death, Do-Over, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Sorry, Magic, Mentioned Kate Marsh - Freeform, Mentioned Noctis, Poor Prompto Argentum, Post-Canon, Sacrifice Chloe Ending, Sad, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 13:59:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13859208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrozenHearts/pseuds/FrozenHearts
Summary: Prompto runs into a girl with a camera.Her photos leave much to be desired.





	Ordinary World

**Author's Note:**

> So I started this series with Ardyn meeting The Outsider from Dishonored in The Beyond/Void. I keep thinking about other franchises that have characters that connect with the FFXV characters in little ways. Ardyn and The Outsider are both immortal gods. Max and Prompto both enjoy photography, thus this little one-shot. 
> 
> I really love this one, so I hope you guys like it too :)

When he was a teenager, Prompto loved viewing the world through his camera lens. He love capturing people at their most vulnerable, the little things that really show a person's true colors. The way Ignis always blushed at Gladio's innued's. The way Iris would smile when her dad came home safe from a mission. The way the sylleblossoms in the Citadel garden turned towards the sun, desperate for attention from the being in the sky. Luna's hands as they ruffled Pryna's fur upon being reunited all those years ago when the dog ran away.

These were some of his best memories. Things that weren't reminiscent of sharp needles and hard walls. Of cold faces and even colder hearts as they dabbled with beings and monsters they didn't understand.

Prompto used his camera to get away from the itch of pulling a trigger. To get away from the notion that he is one of those cold, heartless things created by the enemy. His friends knew who he was. Prompto thought he knew.

It turns out, as the world hastened to mask itself in shadows, that no one knew. No one knew anything and now they were stuck trying to survive in endless darkness. So Prompto took more pictures. He took pictures of Irish showing off her newest scar from fighting an Iron Giant alongside Aranea on a hunt. He took photos of Gladio sweeping Ignis into an impromptu dance, despite there being no music. Ignis stepped on Gladio's toes more often than not, still not used to being without his sight.

Sometimes he heard Ignis crying at night, his tears muffled through the door of his room when he thought no one could hear.

Today, as he was sitting on a bench in one of the hunter's hubs, Prompto was scrolling through his camera, remembering. Memories were at his fingertips but he didn't feel especially happy about them. Hunters and civilians bustled about, gathering weapons and rations and whatever else they needed before going out. People did whatever they could to secure a roof over their heads these days. Dave once told him he should sell the camera, saying he'd get more gil for food and lodging if he did.

"It was a gift from a friend," Prompto had told him, "I need it now more than ever."

Dave didn't say anything else when Prompt said that. He had a feeling Dave knew who he was talking about.

So he ignored everyone trying to move around him, scrolling through images of Cindy laughing at the lens, her grandpa giving a pointed glare to the camera. He saw Gentiana hiding behind Crowe as she and Nyx gave each other bunny ears. The next was Jared and Talcott in the hardens of the Amicitia estate, there was Sania with her frogs and Monica with some of her fellow plant workers sharing tea, there was-

"Oh," Prompto sighed heavily. He forgot he had this picture.

Noctis stared back at him, blue eyes smiling from under a fringe of dark hair as he beamed brighter than anything Prompto's ever seen.

"That's a cool picture."

Prompto nearly dropped the camera as he jumped, picking up his head to see a girl staring down at him. She wasn't wearing the usual black all the hinters tended to wear, instead donning what a normal high school kid would wear- jeans, a pink tee-shirt, gray hoodie. A short bob of brown hair framed her face, and Prompto noticed a black camera bag slung over her shoulder.

"Can I see?"

Prompto blinked. No one really bothered with looking at his photos anymore. Jared used to, having looked up to Noctis as a kid, but he didn't bother so much anymore.

"Oh, uh... sure, I guess?" Prompto found himself saying, "They're very old, though. I don't have any recent ones."

The girl plonked herself down on the bench, putting her own camera in her lap. The bag looked new, the zipper gleaming with shiny metal, the strap still thick and supportive. The girl caught him looking, raising an eyebrow at him, "Did you wanna see mine?"

Prompto blushed, "I-I mean, I'll show you mine if you s-show me yours!"

The girl laughed, her eyes crinkling at the corners. It made her look tired. It made her look like she had seen some serious shit. She probably had, Pompto mused, if she's sitting here instead of wherever she came from. The velcro of her bag opening scraped his ears, and Prompto held his breath as she pulled out the oldest camera he'd probably ever had the chance to see. It was a brown Polaroid, with a red stripe for decoration, fake wood paneling on the sides and back.

"Chloe would probably make some dirty joke to go along with that," the girl commented, handing her camera to him, "Trade?"

Having the weight of his own camera replaced by what felt like air was somehow alarming. Prompto was used to feeling the weight of his memories. He was used to having been bogged down by the past as he scrolled through the images, a reminder that this was real, this was happening. That Noctis was dead, and there was no way to bring him back until he chose to.

"The lighting in these are all really good," the girl said as she flicked through them. "I have a few pics in my bag if you want to see them."

He did. So she rummaged through a messenger bag (when did she acquire that? He didn't remember seeing it on her person before), pulling out a handful of Polaroids, "Some are faded, but I like them enough."

He flipped through them, letting her camera sit in his lap. These were beyond professional, as he felt a spurt of jealousy jump into his throat. These were the kind of pictures you'd see in a museum gallery, being printed for magazines. He suddenly remembered Vyv, the large man photographing by the beach in Lestallum. He'd definitely had paid an absurdly high price for these pictures. He saw students skateboarding on a set of stairs, he saw hands painting nails and another braided hair. Neon lights from a party with what looked like too much underage drinking. The back of someone's head as they leaned over a sketchbook. The carcasses and bones of beached whales on the shore.

A few of them were portraits of a girl with blue hair. Smoking, waving a gun around, laughing as she ran along a set of train tracks.

"That's Chloe," the girl said, then suddenly added, "I'm Max, by the way."

"Prompto."

Max chuckled, "Weird name, but hella cool."

Prompto looked back at the picture of Chloe. The one he currently was looking at depicted her dancing around in a bedroom, with wood walls and floors. Posters were blurred in the background, light from  a nearby window shadowing Chloe in the foreground. She wasn't wearing anything except a white tank top and a pair of black boxer briefs, a smile on her face as if she didn't have a care in the world.

"She looks cool," Prompto lamely said. He handed back the photos, "This is a nice camera too."

Max shrugged, "Chloe always said it was boring, not up-to-date, etc."

Prompto smirked. From the picture he could tell Chloe was the stereotypical punk with a heart of gold. It made him wonder how she became friends with Max when Max was so... plain. Nothing really stood out about her.

"Noctis pretended he hated pictures," Prompto gestured tot he photo she was looking at, of Noctis displaying one of his biggest catches. He remembered that day like it was yesterday, laughing as Noctis struggled to reel the thing in, how Gladio just jumped into the lake to heave the monstrosity over his shoulder. Ignis wasn't happy about the fish smell at the time.

"He looks like he liked fishing," Max said. Prompto nodded.

"Yeah. Didn't get to do it much, though," Prompto offered, "Too busy with princely duties to do the things he liked."

Max nodded, handing the camera back to Prompto.

"i gotta say, I don't really know anything about this place," Max said almost sheepishly. Prompto felt a ping of confusion at the back of his skull, the thought that something wasn't quite right with Max as she said, "I think I jumped too far, or too soon or-"

Jumped?

"- just wanted Chloe back, y' know? I mean, yeah she was brash and loud but she was awesome. And now I don't know if jumping this time will work, or-"

"Hold on, what do you mean?" Prompto cut her off. He'd heard the term before, in all those stupid sci-fi movies he and Noctis watched as kids when Ignis said to do their homework. Jumping was always synonymous with time travel, but that couldn't be what she was talking about. As she sat there, rambling, Prompto realized what she meant.

Whoever Chloe was, she was dead. That much was clear. But Max was making it sound as if she could go back, as if she could fix things, to make sure Chloe stayed alive.

Max was making it sound like she was from an alternate universe. Where people didn't have magic and still used cell phones and didn't have maniacal immortal deviants vying for their family's blood. Like they didn't have madmen playing scientist and cloning themselves and ruining their child's life. She made her world sound good and, oh, gods, did Prompto want something good. Where he wasn't hiding his heritage, he wasn't mourning his best and only friend.

Where the world wasn't shrouded in eternal darkness with no end in sight.

All of a sudden, Max was getting up, saying something to him. He wasn't listening. If Max had this power, the ability to time-travel...

"You can bring Noctis back."

Max shook her head, "No, I can't."

Oh. That complicated things.

"Why not?" he dared to ask.

Max shrugged, "I don't know how it works. And I already killed Kate."

"Kate?"

"A friend of mine. It was an accident. She jumped off the roof." Max explained, "I went back in time to prevent it, but I was too late."

Tears pricked the corner's of his eyes, Oh. That... that was bad. He didn't know why he was crying, though. He didn't know Chloe, he didn't know this Kate. But the world was depending on Noctis, and if Max could bring him back... if she tried....

Prompto bit his lip. No. He couldn't ask her to do that. He couldn't drag a total stranger into a different mess. He looked up at her, as she stood from her seat. She looked apologetic, like she would try if she could, but they both knew it wasn't going to happen. She had Chloe. She had Kate. Prompto had so many more- Gladio, Ignis, Cor, all of them. He was part of something bigger. He wasn't the only one mourning.

"I'm sorry," was all Max said. He watched as she held out her hand, fingers splayed as if she were about to play the piano. A loud rip. A flash of blue.

Max was gone.

"Yeah," Prompto said to no one in particular, staring at where Max was just standing, "I'm sorry too."

He sat on the bench for a bit longer, wondering where it was Max went.

Maybe Noctis was in the same place.

**Author's Note:**

> So next up I want to write Gentiana interacting with Cole from Dragon Age, and Cindy hanging out with Brigitte from Overwatch. I'm a bit stumped on who to pair up with Gladio and Ignis, so if you have any suggestions, let me know and I'll see what I can do

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Aluerat](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15220694) by [HakureiRyuu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HakureiRyuu/pseuds/HakureiRyuu)




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